


Kryptonite

by IncompleteSentanc (Erava)



Category: Naruto
Genre: And Her Stupid Bones Too, Deaths, Everything Sucks And Then You Die, Gen, Hopeful Ending, Kaguya's Bitch Ass, many many deaths, mild insanity, sadfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 10:46:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13409619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erava/pseuds/IncompleteSentanc
Summary: If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?(Or: The Five Times Sakura Knew She Lost Her Mind, And The One Time She Knew It'd Be Okay)





	Kryptonite

**Author's Note:**

> “I watched the world float to the dark side of the moon.  
> After all I knew, it had to be something to do with you  
> I really don’t mind what happens now and then  
> As long as you’ll be my friend at the end."

* * *

Sakura can’t pinpoint the exact moment she lost her mind, but she could honestly not deny that it was, indeed, lost. 

It hits her first when she finds herself in Kumogakure, tearing apart Zetsu’s with gleeful abandon while the village burns around her.

It hits her again when Suna falls and she can’t even bring herself to cry as she helps Naruto dig Gaara from the ashes.

“We’re shinobi.” Sakura tells Naruto firmly, grasping one trembling shoulder while Sasuke grasps the other. She picks him up from the ground, healing his wounds, and lets him shake against her, Sasuke watching pensively over his shoulder. “We endure.” She tells Naruto.

It hits her a third time when Ino and Shikamaru die right in front of her, chopped in two by a raging Kaguya trying to reach her. Obito stands in her way as Sakura screams, not in horror but in sheer, unadulterated rage. “Kaguya!” She screams and screams, fighting as Obito drags her away, and she’s still shaking with fury when he returns her to the camp lying on the outskirts of the Land of Water. They’re still accepting refugees, and Shikamaru, Sakura, and Ino were in charge of the efforts to transport civilians to the isolated islands literally hidden in the mist.

“They’re dead.” Sakura announces to the camp, flat and hard, when she returns empty handed. “Get back to work.” She orders, and the shinobi hesitate a moment longer before shuffling reluctantly off, disenchanted by the news. The loss of Ino would be hard on her, but the loss of Shikamaru would be hard on everyone. 

Kaguya attacks again two nights later, and this time it isn’t just a scouting party she destroys. Obito stands with her at the end of it, when only ten of their hundred shinobi are left, and all the civilians but those on the ships are dead.

“There’s nothing we can do against her.” Sakura says furiously, healing those that remain standing. She and Tsunade had been  _ so close _ to finding a way to stop the decay of ashes Kaguya’s bones caused, but Tsunade was  _ dead now,  _ and Sakura was  _ alone. _

Obito holds her hand tightly, like he wasn’t the very reason this all happened to begin with, but she doesn’t have it in her to blame him. Her anger is all consuming, and only one target is needed.  _ Kaguya, _ she thinks furiously.

The fourth time it hits her is when Sasuke almost dies. He and Naruto are off to the side fighting Kaguya while Sakura, Obito, and Kakashi fight off her hordes of Zetsus, keeping them away.

Kaguya teleports behind Sasuke, who twists away from the blow at the last second, but her bone still breaks the skin on his left bicep.

“Sakura!” Naruto screams and Sakura immediately abandons Obito and Kakashi, turning to find Sasuke on the ground and Naruto kneeling beside him, ash dusting the air as Kaguya floats above them. Sakura lunges, Yin seal empowering her to leap up and aim a flying kick at Kaguya’s eerily beautiful head.

The woman teleports away, vanishing for a moment, and then she hears the screams on the other side of the battlefield.

Sakura ignores them, crouching at Sasuke’s side. His left arm is in crumbles, his face pale, and Naruto’s glowing hand is pressed tightly to his shoulder. “I’m slowing it down.” Naruto says, looking beyond them and towards the screams with a tight expression. 

_ Still so compassionate, _ Sakura thinks as she reaches down and grabs Sasuke’s sword from where it had fallen to the ground. “Naruto.” She says quietly. “Look away.” 

He freezes, eyes still fixed on the horizon, and carefully doesn’t look back.

Not even when Sasuke screams.

Not even when his arm hits the ground and disintegrates.

The fifth time that she knows she’s well and truly lost it is at the final battle.

Konoha, Iwa, and Kiri are the only ones left standing, and Iwa is on the brink when they leave. Just the five of them - Obito, Kakashi, Sasuke, Naruto, and herself. 

“I’m going to draw her out.” Naruto says and Sakura nods, readying herself. 

The fight is beyond intense. It drags each of them to the very edge of their capabilities.

Obito is the first to fall. Sakura doesn’t mourn him, not really, even if he’d done much to redeem himself after unleashing this hell on their planet.

It’s Kakashi’s death that unnerves her. He dies holding Obito’s disintegrating body, and ends up following a moment later. 

What unnerves her isn’t the rage that follows - but rather, the lack of it. She just feels  _ tired, _ even as Naruto roars with grief and charges, and her and Sasuke hastily follow chase. 

Their hands close in, Kaguya tries to escape, and Sakura roundhouse kicks her so hard she tumbles straight into their palms. 

The moon bleeds red for only a few seconds longer before the color begins to fade, and a new moon takes its own place in the sky. 

Sakura watches, standing even as Naruto crumples and mourns Kakashi, Sasuke hovering uneasily over them both. 

The moon bleeds red, then pink, then a pale shade of off-white, and then it glows like it’s always supposed to.

“She’s dead.” Sakura proclaims, flat and calm. She wonders if this is what Sasuke had felt after killing Itachi, before realizing the injustice of it all.

Had he felt lost, suddenly stripped of his one goal in life? To avenge the people he’d lost, as she’d struggled to avenge hers? 

“Kakashi’s dead.” Naruto half-sobs, and when she finally tears her stare away from the moon, he’s looking at her like he’s never seen her before. “Kakashi’s  _ dead, _ Sakura.”

“I watched.” Sakura says softly, kneeling down and taking Naruto’s hands. The man seems to forgive her then, leaning forward and pressing his head to her shoulder, and she holds him tightly, feeling something harden inside her.

She hasn’t lost purpose.

She just forgot it along the way, lost to vengeance and fury.

_ Team Seven, _ Sakura reflects, looking over at the spot where Obito and Kakashi’s ashes now mingle. “We’re shinobi.” She says quietly, then makes a soft noise. “No. We’re more than that. We’re Team Seven, Naruto, Sasuke.” She says firmly, looking up at the black haired man who stares down at her with the same calm expression she imagines she’d been wearing moments ago. 

“We’re Team Seven.” She repeats, tightening her grip on Naruto before hauling him forcefully to his feet. He wavers, sniffling back more tears, and Sakura smiles at him tiredly. “We endure.”

He stares back at her for a long minute, then at Sasuke, and then back to her again.

“Team Seven.” He echoes quietly, shakily, and then nods, wiping his tears away on his sleeve. “We endure.”

“We endure.” Sasuke confirms in a low rumble, and they look up at the new moon in the sky, smaller than the other but no less intimidating now that they know what it contains. Kaguya, Madara, the Jūbi - and all the bijū who had had the misfortune of not escaping the seal in time.

“Kurama.” Naruto says softly, sadly, and Sakura squeezes his hand. Sasuke squeezes his shoulder. “At least he won’t be enslaved anymore.” He murmurs mournfully.

“He’s asleep now. Maybe one day, we’ll find a way to release them.” Sakura encourages gently, and Sasuke, to her surprise, nods.

“Perhaps with the Rinnegan, we can enter the seal and free them.”

Naruto nods, downtrodden and heartbroken, but he nods nonetheless. 

“Let’s go home.” Sakura says with renewed purpose.

“Yeah.” Naruto says quietly. “Let’s go home. Konoha needs us.”

They might never recover, and she might’ve lost her mind to it all, but they survived.

 

And they endure.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> “If I go crazy then will you still call me Superman?  
> If I’m alive and well will you be there holding my hand?  
> I’ll keep you by my side with my superhuman might,  
> Kryptonite.”


End file.
